Diving In
by EmilineHarris
Summary: Draco Malfoy gets a little exercise and contemplates his mission for the Dark Lord. [One-shot]


**"DIVING IN"**

Malfoy Manor was quiet.

Narcissa was in the parlor, sipping from her morning tea as her son appeared in the doorway, wearing a gray terrycloth robe and some loose fitting black shorts. She looked at him and sighed. The change had been gradual, but he certainly wasn't a little boy anymore. He was tall and thin yet muscular, and the chubby cheeks he'd had as a child had given way to more chiseled and defined features. He was looking more and more like his father each day, with his gray eyes and hair so blond that it bordered on white.

She frowned slightly, thinking of her husband in an Azkaban cell and wondered how it would affect Draco in the long run. In the short time that Lucius had been gone, the Dark Lord had already taken an intense interest in their son, and that worried her greatly. She didn't want Draco to sense it, however, because he had seemed so excited by the extra attention.

Draco stopped to regard her through his narrowed eyes as he leaned against the door frame. "What are you fretting about, Mother?" He asked curtly.

Narcissa feigned a smile. "I'm just thinking about your father," she replied. "Things have just been so quiet here without him."

Draco held in a snort. Yes, the absence of his father had been vaguely unsettling, but it had also given him a moment's peace.

It was hard living up to his father's lofty expectations.

"He shouldn't have fallen short, then, now should he?" Draco snidely replied, referring to Lucius's error in procuring the prophesy that Lord Voldemort had requested. Falling short was something that he was, unfortunately, all too familiar with. But that was about to change.

Narcissa took notice of the determined spark that set itself in Draco's eye. "I know that you have a lot on your mind," she commented.

The hiss of words previously spoken rattled in his brain.

_Mr. Malfoy, come forward please. I'd like a word._

"Do I?" Draco asked with a shrug.

Narcissa sipped her tea and regarded him coolly. The seriousness of the situation and all that it would eventually entail was not lost on her.

"I've got it all under control, Mother."

"I know that you do, but you're still a boy ... _My _boy," she offered, her voice soft with a mother's love.

Draco's eyes darkened and his posture stiffened. "Don't be ridiculous!" he spat, defensively. "I'm practically a man!"

"Yes, yes" she sighed, not wanting to provoke him any farther. "I know that you are. It's just that sometimes when I look at you, I still see that little first year staring back at me."

Draco released a steady breath and shook his head. "I'm going out to the pool," he changed the subject. "It seemed like a good morning to get some laps in."

Narcissa nodded. "I'll have one of the house elves bring lunch out to you in a little while."

Draco emerged from the Manor and made his way outside into the fresh air. At this time of year, the grounds that surrounded the property were as green as the Slytherin emblem that graced his Hogwarts robes. Squinting his gray eyes from the sun that shone overhead, he approached the rectangular swimming pool just beyond the Manor's outdoor terrace. It was about twenty-five meters long and five meters wide, long and slender, nestled between two rows of boxwood hedges to separate it from the rest of the gardens. While a majority of the pool's porcelain tiles were stark white, stripes of green and black lined the entire perimeter and ran along the bottom to define the lanes.

Draco dropped the towel and wand that he had been carrying onto a lounge chair just steps away from the pool. Shrugging the gray terrycloth robe from his shoulders and letting it drop with a soft thud to the ground, he stepped toward the edge and dipped a toe into the warm, clear water.

He crossed his muscular arms in front of himself to give them a good stretch, and tilted his head from side to side, giving the bones in his neck a good crack. He took a deep breath and dove in, elegantly gliding just below the glossy surface before coming up again. Kicking his feet and pulling the water in long strokes with his arms, he effortlessly swam the length of the pool, pushing off the opposite wall and heading back the way he came.

Back and forth he swam, multiple times, across the length of the pool, until his lungs and muscles burned with exhaustion.

He liked to spend time swimming in the summers. The exercise was always good, but it also helped to focus his mind, and, today, he needed something mundane to slow the cogs that were furiously turning in his brain.

_I have a very important mission for you, Draco._

Coming to a momentary stop at the edge of the pool, he slunk down for a moment to catch his breath, his back pressing against the cool green and black tile, just his nose and eyes showing above the plane of the water as he bobbed there.

His eyes sparkled defiantly.

Finally, someone had chosen _him_ for a change.

Pushing off the wall again, he continued swimming his laps.

The past five years had all been so disappointing. He had spent his entire life hearing how special he was. How gifted he was. How, as a pureblood wizard, he held the key to any door he dared enter. He was supposed to be at the top of his game, winning and taking top spot in every contest, yet he was consistently overshadowed by a twat in round glasses, a ginger-haired weasel, and a mudblood (a sniveling _female_ at that!) since his very first year at Hogwarts.

It was humiliating.

A cruel joke.

He was Draco_ fucking_ Malfoy. That should have counted for something.

It should have meant everything.

_I need someone that I can rely on. Someone that can get the job done._

But now, much to his pleasure, his true potential was finally being recognized. And not just anyone was paying attention.

Lord Voldemort himself had recruited him and requested his assistance in a task that, he said, would change the course of history. Soon, all the promises of his upbringing would come to fruition, and the whole wizarding world would see just how special he really was. Draco Malfoy wasn't a wallflower anymore, merely blending into the background. _He_ wasn't relegated to the shadows.

_He_ was the Chosen One. Harry Potter be damned.

Taking a deep breath from the surface of the water, and then turning gracefully onto his back for his next set of laps, Draco closed his gray eyes and felt the warmth of the summer sun on his face.

Yes, things were looking up.

Once he succeeded in his most important task, he'd return the entire Malfoy family to Lord Voldemort's good graces. The stain of his father's imprisonment in Azkaban would be nothing but a distant memory, and he'd be able to make everyone prouder than he had in years.

He just had to use his intellect and cunning to figure out how he'd go about executing the plan …

_And you must succeed in this, Draco. Failure is not an option. I will not tolerate it._

Stopping at the wall again to take a short break, Draco noticed activity at the far end of the pool, where he had left his belongings and entered the water.

"Young Malfoy," a house elf called to him. "Your lunch is ready."

Draco deftly swam across to the other side and then pulled himself out of the pool in one continuous, fluid motion. He walked over to the lounge chair and picked up his towel, quickly drying his face and rubbing it roughly over his white blond hair to wick away some of the water. He rubbed it down his chest and across his taught abs to collect the water there, too, then he wrapped it tightly around his waist.

Sitting down and taking the plate from the elf, he looked out over the Manor's grounds as he took a bite of his sandwich and started chewing.

He was seventeen now. Practically a man, as he had told his mother earlier.

He'd thought that, at this point in his life, he'd have more accomplishments under his belt, more accolades to stoke his ego, but things hadn't been handed to him as easily as he was anticipating … He hadn't been the hero of any Quidditch matches. He hadn't been first in any of his classes (except for Potions, perhaps, since Professor Snape understood that purebloods were superior). Hell, he felt like he was practically invisible most of the time.

He had always fallen just short of greatness and it was driving him crazy.

This year would be different, he decided. His seventeenth year would be the year he showed everyone what Draco Malfoy was capable of … That he was so much more than just a school yard bully.

Putting his sandwich onto the plate on his lap and leaning back in his chair, Draco's eyes caught the inky black image on his left arm, and he was briefly taken by surprise. The Dark Mark had only been there for a few days, so it still seemed a bit foreign to him. He wasn't fully accustomed to seeing the harsh, dark lines of the skull and twisted snake, juxtaposed against his pale complexion.

He thoughtfully ran a slender finger over its surface, feeling the smoothness of his skin and marveling in the fact that, if he closed his eyes, he'd have no indication that it was even there. Yet, he waited expectantly for the day it would tingle and burn when the Dark Lord called to him, summoning him and the rest of the Death Eaters to join him in his war.

The corner of Draco's lips curved into a smirk, and his gray eyes narrowed.

For the first time in a long time, he felt powerful.

It was intoxicating.

He continued with his lunch and then got to his feet once he had finished. He unhooked the towel from around his waist and dropped it onto the chair. Picking up his hawthorn wand, he padded off along the hedges in his bare feet. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he kept his gray eyes peeled as he meandered through the garden.

When the Manor was nothing but a small, gray shadow behind him, he caught a quick flash of white in his peripheral vision.

He eyed the albino peacock from a distance, training his wand on it, bending his wrist ever so slightly as he quietly stalked over. The dumb creature didn't even notice his approach, but why would it? There were no predators on these grounds, and the thing was basically a spoilt pet.

Focusing his eyes on it for a moment more, Draco drew in a deep breath. "Avada Kedavra!" he hissed through clenched teeth, watching as the flash of green light shot from his wand and hit the white bird square in its feathered chest, causing it to fall over in a cold, dead heap.

A sneer spread across Draco's lips.

If this little bit of target practice was any indication, his mission was going to be easier than he thought, and he was eager to start making all the preparations.

.

* * *

**a/n: I've been away from fanfiction for quite a while and I'm just dipping my toe back in. This is my first crack at writing Draco and I hope it's okay. Reviews and constructive criticism appreciated!**


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